Quarantine Blog - Day 3

 

So today I’ve decided to write about something other than my how my day went yesterday. I’m still surprised that almost 300 people read about me slapping my brother awake, but I’m more surprised that over 1500 of you read my day 1 blog. Bearing in mind that my most popular blog before only reached a measly 65. Thanks for reading/sharing the post, if you didn’t then I disapprove of your life’s choices, you should go home and think about your actions.

Today I am going to write about Hope. And I don’t mean former USA Women’s Goalkeeper Hope Solo, I mean about that illusive, intangible something, that is so important in leading happy lives, but is so easily lost. And I feel like given what’s happening in the World presently and over the last few years, we all need a bit of Hope. Hope is what keeps us all going, whether it be better circumstances for you as an individual, as a society, as a country, or even on a global spectrum, it really depends on what you value I suppose. It’s why people follow religions. The very idea of a Heaven/afterlife gives people lifelong hope that their circumstances no matter what will be better once they pass. It’s probably why Religions were historically far more popular than they are today, because that hope would be the only thing keeping you going, while everyone was dying from plagues, wars, invaders etc. The emergence of Science, medical breakthroughs, technology have changed this somewhat. For me personally, Hope has been on a downward trajectory over the last few years and I remember like it was yesterday the very point that decline started. 

On the 23rd June 2016, I was on a summer vacation in Cornwall with my partner, Melissa. I remember waking up to a very happy face. Unfortunately it wasn’t Mel’s and it certainly wasn’t mine (we were camping in peak pollen season, happiness and pollen can never really intertwine for a Hayfever sufferer). No, It was the face of that calamitous, catastrophic, grotesque, greasy, milk-livered weasel…Nigel Farage. I was on the losing side of the Brexit vote. I won’t talk about Brexit other than from my point of view it was based on some peculiar sense of Nationalistic pride and fear of being ‘overwhelmed’ by people fleeing a war our country was directly involved in. But I totally get the Irony, for me and 16’141’240 other people, we had just lost Hope. But for 17’410’742 others they had just gained some. So Hope is fluid. 

‘One man’s trash is another man’s treasure’ 

Again it comes down to what you value, so choose what you value with great care. 

Since that morning in June 2016 we have seen the some other uncomfortable events that really have battered some Hopes. Trump elected, various conflicts, Terrorist attacks, the true impact of the plastic era, a seemingly irreversible Climate Emergency and then 2020/21 came calling. Australian bushfires, Coral bleaching, Covid-19, Lockdowns, Unemployment, Black Murders in the US, small businesses becoming unviable, heatwaves brought on by climate change, Economic impact, eat out to help out(with spreading a virus), more lockdowns, general idiocy of people we have to share our society with, a quiet Christmas, the resurgence of Covid, another Lockdown, the death of my Grandpa. Hope, it can be said, has deserted maybe more than 1 or 2 of us in the last 13 months or so.

I used to think my Nihilism was a super power, nothing could touch me. Some of you may understand I’ve read some Nietzsche and Kant a bit too much. For those who don’t know what Nihilism is I’ll give a brief definition:

“The rejection of all religious/ideological/institutional principles, in the belief that life is meaningless. The belief that nothing in the world has a real existence.”

It sounds depressing, but to me it was/is true freedom. All our actions and consequences are essentially meaningless in the grand scheme of cosmic existence, so just have some bloody fun. Yes, there are still morals you must create for yourself so you don’t just go around murdering people, but not having some religious or ideological set rules to follow all your life rids you of that anxiety of “am I good enough? Am I loved?”

But unfortunately this way of thinking immediately starves you of hope. Although every England football understands the term: 

“It’s the hope that kills you”

Most don’t realise that: 

“it’s the hope that keeps you going.” 

Whether that be with these vaccines we will be able to return to some normality soon, or that companies will continue investing in greener ways to operate, or that in 2022 Harry Kane will square it to Raheem Sterling, Hope is needed for our positive mental health. It’s not just balancing the chemicals in your brain with anti-depressants, it’s not just going for a run that’ll give you endorphins that’ll provide you happiness. You’ve got to search for that Hope. Only 1 person is going to find it for you, *points finger at you*. There’s a lot of distractions out there but take as much me time as you need, not to just sit on your arse eating crisps and watching Louis Theroux documentaries. Ask yourself those bigger questions we all dodge, What drives me? What do I value? What is life to me? What is death to me?

I always enjoyed watching films or programs that are about finding Hope in Hopelessness, which is why I’ve always been drawn to the Lord of the Rings. Not just because it’s an undeniably awesome story, or that it closely resembles Tolkien’s experiences in World War 1, but because existentially its always provided me with hope. My favourite character and the chief hero of the story is Sam Wise Gamgee, no matter the situation he always puts his friend before himself, he provides the hope to keep them going. I’ll leave you with my favourite quote from it, which will give you an indication why. It’s more truer now in the global situation than it ever has been:

“Sam: It’s all wrong

By rights we shouldn’t even be here.

But we are.

It’s like in the great stories Mr. Frodo.

The ones that really mattered.

Full of darkness and danger they were,

and sometimes you didn’t want to know the end.

Because how could the end be happy.

How could the world go back to the way it was when so much bad happened.

But in the end, it’s only a passing thing, this shadow.

Even darkness must pass.

A new day will come.

And when the sun shines it will shine out the clearer.

Those were the stories that stayed with you.

That meant something.

Even if you were too small to understand why.

But I think, Mr. Frodo, I do understand.

I know now.

Folk in those stories had lots of chances of turning back only they didn’t.

Because they were holding on to something.

Frodo: What are we holding on to, Sam?

Sam : That there’s some good in this world, Mr. Frodo. And it’s worth fighting for.”